Essential LightWave 3D- P3

Essential LightWave 3D- P3

Essential LightWave 3D- P3: What you have in your hands is, quite simply,
a collection of tools and techniques that
many professional LightWave artists use
every single day doing what we do in our
various fields. The tools and techniques
explored in this book are essential to creating
the caliber of imagery that you see on
film and television and in print and video
games.

Nội dung Text: Essential LightWave 3D- P3

Chapter 2 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
LightWave ScreamerNet
LightWave ScreamerNet is a stand-alone Using LWSN and a local area network,
program that does nothing but render. you can expand your rendering capabilities
Through discipline, focus, and binary-level to almost any machine on your LAN. (Don’t
programmatic optimization, the coders at throw out that old 366 laptop! Hook it up
NewTek have managed to condense and use it as part of your render-farm!)
LightWave’s awesome might at creating the
incredible; they have distilled all that awe-
some rendering power until it fits into the Note
528 KB space of a little command-line pro- Because of the way networks generally han-
gram that would leave room to spare on a dle filenames, never have spaces in the
names for your objects or scenes if you plan
floppy disk.
on rendering over a network. Even if you
don’t immediately think you’ll be rendering
across multiple machines, not using spaces
in your LightWave names is just a good
habit to get into. (That’s why you see all of
the names in this book divided with under-
scores (_) instead of spaces.)
Figure 2-106: As simple as it may look, this little
thing has all the power of LightWave’s renderer at
its command.
Note
LightWave was first built on the Amiga plat- game favorites were able to do in the space
form, back when its 1 MB of internal memory and with the hardware that an electric tooth-
was seen as ludicrously large by the PC and brush of today would find constrictive. Most
Apple crowds. Back then, memory was pre- of them, like Ms. Pac Man, Defender, Star-
cious (even as late as 1994, an 8 MB SIMM gate, and Star Wars, are less than 40 KB
could cost almost $1,000). worth of information!)
Even though memory and hard disk space The larger a program is, the longer it takes
prices have fallen below where any of us to get a memo from one end of it to the other
“old-guard geeks” could ever have hoped, (just like in any other bureaucracy or corpo-
and a simple word processor can require up ration). LightWave has not expanded to fill
to 500 MB of space to run, the programmers the gaps left by cavernous memory and blis-
at NewTek seem to remember the old days tering processor speed but remains stream-
when space was limited. Why is this impor- lined, leaving you more space for complex
tant? Optimization means speed! objects, surfaces, and FX and resulting in one
(Take a look at how much our old video of the fastest, most reliable renderers, period!
···
All of this is LightWave … and we have just
barely scratched its surface.
48

Chapter 3
Modeling 1:
Foundation Material
“You gotta learn to walk before you can fly,” Max Plank, Copernicus, Albert Einstein.
the old saying goes. They could have explored the same
This is the chapter where you will learn well-traveled trails everyone else at their
the foundation material of modeling from level had hashed and rehashed. Instead,
which all your other modeling skills will armed with granite understandings of their
grow. In this, as well as every aspect of all respective foundation materials, they in
forms of art, the foundation materials give essence said, “I’ve already been down that
you the rules to follow to get something road. I know where it leads. Aaah now, this
done quickly, easily, and reliably. After you path over here … this looks like fun.”
know the “rules” like the back of your
hand, you cast them to the wind and ex- “Some rules may be bent…
plore as far and as wide as you can. Re- others may be broken.”
member the paths explored by the great — Morpheus, The Matrix
artist/scientists before you: Nikola Tesla,
Points (Vertices)
point n. 1. A mark formed by or as if by Hot Key Block
the sharp end of something. 2. Mathematics. Create Points and Polys
A dimensionless geometric object having activates the Create Points tool.
no property but location. (The American
creates a polygon from the points you
Heritage Dictionary) have selected.
ver·tex n. The point at which the sides of
an angle intersect. (The American Heritage
Points exist within three-dimensional
Dictionary)
space, having X, Y, and Z position informa-
tion. They take up no “space,” and until
being assigned as a part of a polygon they
do not, themselves, render (show up) in
Layout’s finished drawings or movies (see
Figure 3-1).
49

Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Note
Points, in 3D lingo,
are also referred
to as vertices or
vertexes.
Figure 3-1: The point is your most basic tool for creating geometry. Points are
created using Create | Points | Points.
When you left-click in the viewport with
the Create Points tool active, you get a
point that you can drag around until it is in
the place you want it.
Figure 3-2: Right-clicking accepts the position of the point you were working
with, giving you a new point to position and leaving the other points you have
created selected in the order in which they were created.
50

· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Figure 3-3: Clicking on Create | Polygons | Make Polygon creates a
polygon from the points you have just created by deselecting the points and
adding the polygon that was just created to the current polygon selection.
Note Note
The order in which points are created is very The Pen tool in Modeler (under Create |
important. LightWave “connects the dots” Polygons | Pen) combines the acts of mak-
when you make a polygon. Changing the ing points and connecting the dots to make
point order can drastically change the shape a polygon into one easy tool.
of the polygon.
If, for whatever reason, you realize that
the order in which you’re creating the points
isn’t quite right, you can press to
keep the position of your most recently cre-
ated point (or press to remove your
most recently created point) and deselect the
points you’ve created. Then, you can reselect
the points in the order you want them to
“outline” the polygon to be created (just like
a connect-the-dots puzzle)!
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Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Polygons
pol·y·gon n. A closed plane figure bounded
by three or more line segments. (The Amer-
ican Heritage Dictionary)
Polygons are the second-most-
basic building block for creating
objects in LightWave (second
only to the point). The most
common polys you’ll be working
with will have three or four
vertices and three or four sides
(tris and quads). But in
LightWave, you aren’t limited to
Figure 3-4: Polygons in LightWave can be made up of as many
tris and quads. You can make as 1,023 points or as few as a single point.
polygons with up to 1,023 points,
while single-point polygons are
often used in creating the stars Polygons are the most elemental piece of
in space scenes. geometry that shows up in LightWave’s
renderer because polygons have surfaces.
(More on surfaces, how to assign them, and
Note how to change them later on in this chap-
The key to doing anything in 3D is to find ter.) When you make a polygon, LightWave
the most elegant way of doing something. assigns it a default surface (initially a light
By “elegance,” I mean to use the absolute
minimum to get the job done.
gray). Once LightWave has a surface from
When you’re building a polygon, use the which to scatter its light, its camera can
smallest number of points you need to hold “see” it.
that shape in place. But in order for LightWave’s camera to
Sure, you can see flat spots on the back of
the dog’s ear at this distance in Figure 3-4,
see a surface, it has to know which direc-
but if he were intended to only be viewed at tion the surface is pointing. In LightWave,
half that size (or from twice that distance), that direction is defined by a surface normal.
the viewer wouldn’t notice those flat spots. It
is only when the object is going to be
brought close to the camera that you nail in
a lot of detail and then only in the areas on
which the camera will be focusing.
52

· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Normals
nor·mal adj. 4. Mathematics a. Being at
right angles; perpendicular. (The American
Heritage Dictionary)
“Abby. . . someone ...”
“Abby who?”
“Abby. . . Normal.”
— Igor and Dr.
Frankenstein,
Young Frankenstein
Figure 3-5: The direction a polygon is facing is indicated by the dashed line
rising perpendicular from its surface. This dashed line is known as the surface
normal.
Surface normals tell LightWave which its displays and its rendering. (Elegance —
direction a polygon is facing. If a polygon is If you aren’t going to see something, don’t
facing away from its viewer, it is treated as bust your chops on it!)
“invisible,” like the polygon on the right in
the shaded Perspective window in Figure
3-5. Note
You can tell the specific surface on a You can use the fact that unless you specifi-
polygon to be visible from either side by cally tell a surface to be treated as double
sided, it is “invisible” from its back side when
setting its Double Sided surface attribute
rendering interior sets. You won’t be limited
(Surface Editor | Double Sided). The to placing your camera inside the set. You
reason this attribute isn’t active by default can have your camera positioned outside
is that most objects are really only seen your set, facing in, and if the walls of your
set aren’t double-sided, you’ll be able to see
from one side, the outside — like a basket- right through them!
ball or a jet fighter. So LightWave culls the
back side of its surfaces by default to speed
53

Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Planar vs. Non-Planar
pla·nar adj. 1. Of, relating to, or situated in
a plane. 2. Flat: a planar surface. (The
American Heritage Dictionary)
Note
Triple turns all
selected polys into
tris, regardless of
whether they are
non-planar.
Figure 3-6: One point on the quad on the right was moved upward, making it
fall outside the plane defined by the quad’s other three points. This polygon is
now non-planar.
With power comes responsibility. And (You can assign a specific X, Y, or Z value to
with LightWave allowing us to have as a selection using Detail | Points | Set
many as 1,023 points defining a polygon, we Value, which would make a non-planar pla-
have to take it upon ourselves to make sure nar once again.) The easiest thing to do,
that all these points lay within a flat plane. other than try to make sure your polys
Non-planar polygons are a big deal remain planar, is to convert non-planars into
because, even though LightWave does a three-sided polygons using Multiply |
good job of “guessing” which way the poly Subdivide | Triple.
is facing, it doesn’t know for sure. When
rendering a non-planar polygon, it may
appear to strobe, flash, or do other unac- Hot Key Block
ceptable things. Triple
In even a moderately complex model, triples the polys you have selected.
trying to isolate an offending point or points (This is the capital letter “T.”)
and move them back into a plane described
by the other points can be a real headache.
54

· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Figure 3-7: The non-planar polygon on the right was tripled, turning it from a
quad into a set of two tris, which are always planar.
Note
When you’ve got a sizable model, how can
Tripling non-planars may be easy, but I find you tell if there are polys that have gone
it’s far better to just be aware of my axes
when I’m moving a single point of a poly-
non-planar? LightWave has a Statistics win-
gon that has more than three points. dow that is absolutely invaluable for
Tripling can create a whole lot of geometry modelers.
that can slow things down, especially if you
triple a polygon that has a lot of points.
Use tripling as a last resort.
Statistics Windows
Can you tell if, let alone how many, non-pla- Statistics button found at the bottom of
nar polys are in the sword in Figure 3-8? Modeler’s interface.
With the Polygon Statistics window, you
can.
The Statistics window is a heads-up dis- Hot Key Block
play that tells you pretty much anything you Statistics Window
need to know about the selection type you opens the Statistics window for the
have active (points, polygons, or volumes specific Selection mode with which you are
— more on this in just a moment). You working.
access the Statistics window through the
55

Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Figure 3-8: The Polygon Statistics window.
Figure 3-9: A detail of the Polygon
Statistics window from Figure 3-8.
Here’s what the Polygon Statistics window
tells me about the Katana object:
• 4 Vertices — There are 393 quads in
this model.
• Total — There are 555 total poly items • >4 Vertices — There are 100 polys
in the model. with more than four vertices in this model.
• Faces — Of these 555 total poly items, • Non-planar — Of all these polys, 10 of
555 of them are faces (standard polygons). them are non-planar.
• Curves — The object has no curves as • Surf: Katana Blade — 163 of these
part of its geometry. polys have the Katana Blade surface applied
• SubPatches — There are no sub- to them. (This and the remaining items in
the Polygon Statistics window are pop-up
patches in this object either.
menus that display lists of the surfaces,
• Skelegons — There are none of Mod-
parts, or sketch colors you’ve created for
eler’s bone-placement icons, known locally
as skelegons. your object.)
• Metaballs — There are no instances • Part: (none) — All 555 of the poly
of metaballs, a type of digital clay. items in this object belong to the part None
(that is, no polys have been assigned to any
• 1 Vertex — There are no polygons
part; this is just a way of grouping polys so
that have only one vertex.
you can easily sift through them later).
• 2 Vertices — There are no polygons
• Col: (none) — None of the 555 poly-
that are made up of only two vertices.
gon items have been assigned a sketch
• 3 Vertices — There are 62 tris in this color (yet another way of keeping your
model. polys separate).
56

· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Figure 3-11: The Volume Statistics
Figure 3-10: The Point Statistics window. window.
Changing the selection mode to Points The Volume Statistics window tells you
makes the Statistics window display point how many points and polys fall inside and
statistics. outside the (right-click-lassoed) selection
The Point Statistics window for the area when the selection mode is set to
Katana object tells us: Volume.
• Total — There are 920 total points in
Note
this object.
• 0 Polygons — There are no points The easiest way to understand the difference
between Include and Exclude Volume selec-
that don’t belong to any polygons (usually
tion mode is to lasso only part of your model
leftovers or mistakes, though there are and, using the “+” and “–” buttons in the
times when you will want to have a point Volume Statistics window, add and remove
without a poly). polygons from your selection.
• Exclude — A polygon that has some points
• 1 Polygons — There are 68 points inside and some points outside the Volume
that belong to only one polygon each. Selection Area is not considered part of the
• 2 Polygons — There are 322 points selection.
• Include — A polygon that has some points
that are shared between two polygons. inside and some points outside the Volume
• 3 Polygons — There are 86 points Selection Area is considered part of the
selection.
that are shared among three polys.
• 4 Polygons — There are 444 points
The Statistics window also shows informa-
that are shared among four polys.
tion about the items you currently have
• >4 Polygons — There are no points
selected.
that are shared among more than four
polys.
• Tang — There are 123 points that
belong to the point selection group Tang.
(This is a pop-up menu that lists all the
point selection sets you’ve created for the
object.)
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Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
• Surf: Katana Blade — Since I have
the Katana Blade surface selected in this
pop-up menu, it being highlighted tells me
that my selection contains at least one poly
with that surface.
• Part: ha — My selection also contains
at least one poly from the part of the sword
I have grouped and named “ha.”
Figure 3-12: The Polygon Statistics window.
Figure 3-13: Detail from the Statistics window.
When you have geometry selected, the cat-
egories into which items in your selection The Statistics window does more than just
fall are shown in light gray text. For Figure show you information. You can use it to add
3-12, I have selected four polygons some- and remove points and polys from your
where on the sword. The Polygon Statistics selection. Clicking on the + or – in the
window tells me the following about the columns at the window’s left adds or sub-
polygons I have selected (from top to bot- tracts all the polys from that category,
tom, only listing the highlighted headings respectively.
that polygons in my selection fall under). Using this, I could triple all the non-pla-
The numbers on the right-hand side don’t nar polygons I’ve got in the Katana, turning
change; they reflect the totals for each category. them into triangles so they render without
the worry of them flickering during an ani-
• Total — Total is highlighted because mation. To do this:
the polys I have selected are part of the
total polygon count (kind of a no-brainer). 1. I would first make doubly sure that I’ve
got nothing else selected, so I know
• Faces — My Katana object consists of I’m only tripling the non-planars.
only faces, so the fact that the Statistics (Check the Quick-Info display in the
window shows my selection to contain lower-left corner of Modeler, and click
faces isn’t surprising either. in the reset area or press to drop
• 4 Vertices — Of the different possible any polys I might have selected; see
numbers of vertices polys can have, my Chapter 2.)
selection falls only under the category of 2. Click on the “+” in the Polygon Statis-
polys with four vertices. (The 4 Vertices tics window’s Non-planar line. (This
category is the only vertex-number cate-
adds all ten non-planar polys that this
gory that is highlighted.)
object has to my selection.)
• Non-planar — My selection of four
3. Press to triple the selected
polygons contains at least one of the ten
polygons.
non-planar polys.
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· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Grouping Polygons (Parts) and Point
Selection Sets
Getting at a tight area of an object has
Note
always been an issue for modelers as they
work. Fingers, if modeled so they touch In the “old days,” modelers had to assign
separate surfaces to groups of polys that
each other, can be tricky, as can the surface they wanted to get at quickly. Though this is
detail of a vehicle or weapon. Grouping the still very much a viable option, the addition
lower part of a character’s facial “mask” of groups and point selection sets makes life
much easier when you want to have easy
separately from the upper part is integral to
access to a model covered in a lot of the
quickly creating the “endomorph” targets same surface.
that drive facial animation. (In grouping for
facial animation, you’ll also want to estab-
To add the selected polys to a part or
lish separate groups for upper and lower
change the part the polys are associated
“inner” mouth parts, such as the jaw/teeth
with, type in the name of the part or select
masses, in addition to groups for left and
it from the pop-up menu that lists all cur-
right brows, upper and lower eyelids, and
rently assigned parts.
cheeks.)
You create a polygon group (a part) or a
point selection set anytime you want to
quickly isolate a part of your object that
you’ll want to get at later.
The Grouping controls can be found Figure 3-15: The Change Part Name window.
under View | Selection Sets. With the
polys selected that you wish to add to,
remove from, or reassign to a grouping (a
part), choose the Create Part button.
Figure 3-16: The Part heading in the Polygon
Statistics window now lists stats for the parts
you’ve created in its pop-up menu.
To remove a poly selection from a part,
simply leave the Name box blank in the
Change Part Name window.
Figure 3-14: The Grouping controls.
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Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Note
A polygon may only belong to one part at a
time. When you change the part assigned to
a poly, it no longer is a part of the group to
which it previously belonged.
Figure 3-18
Figure 3-17
Assigning a selection of points to a point
selection set works exactly the same way as Figure 3-19
assigning a poly to a part.
Once a point has been assigned to a A point may belong to more than one selec-
selection set, that set appears under the tion set at a time. To remove it from a set,
Point Statistics window’s point selection set you must choose the set’s name from the
pop-up menu (Figure 3-18). Point Set pop-up menu, check Remove
Points, and then click OK.
Selection “Tricks”
This section lists Modeler tools for manipu-
lating your selection that “hard-core” Hot Key Block
modelers couldn’t live without. Selection “Tricks”
Modelers new to LightWave who aren’t
Select Connected
used to these kinds of tools in their old pro-
Invert Selection
grams may not at first notice these quiet,
Expand Selection
unassuming tools in their perusings of the
LW manual. But once they’ve been clued in Contract Selection
to what they do, these new LW converts Show Only Selection (Hide
Unselected)
can’t get enough of them!
Show All
Hide Selection
Invert Hidden
60

· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Select Connected
Select Connected (View |
Selection | Connected)
adds to your selection every
polygon directly “connected”
(that has points shared by its
neighbor) to the poly(s) you
currently have selected.
With one polygon selected, Figure 3-20: Using Select Connected.
and using Select Connected,
you can instantly select an The concept is the same as it is with polys,
entire subset of a complex object. You can except that points are selected instead of
also use Select Connected with points. polygons.
Invert Selection
Invert Selection (View |
Selection | Invert)
“flip-flops” what you’ve cur-
rently got selected with what
is currently not selected.
Figure 3-21: After Invert Selection, what was once selected is now
unselected and vice versa.
Expand/Contract Selection
Expand/Contract Selection (View | Selec- row of connected polys or points to your
tion | Expand and View | Selection | current selection.
Contract) adds or removes the outermost
Figure 3-22: A nice neat grouping of points Figure 3-23: After Expand Selection, the current
selected. selection now encompasses the row of points that
bounded the original selection.
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Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Note
Why are all these things that add and
remove polys and/or points from a selection
important? Other than the obvious, there
are two tools — Drag (see Chapter 6) and
Magnet (see Chapter 7) — that are the core
of a character modeler’s skill set. Using
these two tools and a Wacom tablet, you
can almost draw your character on the
screen. When you have a selection of points
and/or polys, these tools exert their effect
only on the points or polys that you have
Figure 3-24: From the original selection in Figure
3-22, after Contract Selection, the points on the selected. In this way, you can cut through
border of the original selection are no longer the confusion of a film-res mesh and tweak
selected. only the points or polys you want — quickly,
easily, and with a minimum of frustration.
Select Loop
Select any two adja-
cent points or polys
and run this tool to
quickly select the
entire band. The
selection will stop
when it reaches a
non-quad polygon or
winds its way around
Figure 3-25: Bands of consecutive points and polys can easily be selected and loops back on
with the Select Loop tool.
itself. Additional bands
The Select Loop tool (View | Selection | can be selected by
More | Select Loop) allows you to select holding the Shift key, selecting two more
bands of points or polygons that follow a set adjacent points or polys, and running the
path along your geometry. In the case of tool again.
polygons, this path is defined by a string of
quadrilaterals. In the case of points, it is Select Points/Polygons
defined by the edge between strings of
quadrilaterals. That sounds complicated, Imagine that you’ve got a fairly complex
but it simply means that if you’ve got a selection of polygons and you want just the
sequence of quads or a sequence of points points from those polygons to be selected.
attached to quads, you can select them eas- The View | Selection | More | Select
ily with this tool. You’ll probably find Points tool will let you do just that. Con-
yourself using this tool quite a bit (I know I versely, View | Selection | More |
do) so it’s worth assigning a keyboard Select Polygons will change your point
shortcut for it. selection back into a polygon selection.
62

· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Note
In order for a poly-
gon to be selected
with the Select Poly-
gons tool, all of the
points that make up
that polygon must
be selected. For
example, with a
simple box, all four
Figure 3-26: The Select Points tool converts your polygon selection into a points must be
point selection.
selected in order for
the Select Polygons
tool to select it.
Figure 3-27: Switching points back to polygons can quickly be done with the
Select Polygons tool.
Show/Hide Selection
With the Show Selection and Hide Selec- I first select the polys of the lower eyelid,
tion tools, you can use your ability to select then add to that selection the polys of the
groups of points or polys and temporarily upper eyelid. (See Figure 3-29.)
remove from view all but the geometry you With just the eyelids selected, using
want to zero in on. View | View | Hide Unselected will get
Having already assigned the polys of the your view to “equal” only what you’ve got
eyelids to separate parts while building the selected (its hot key is ). (See Figure
mesh, using the Polygon Statistics window 3-30.)
When you want to bring all your hidden
geometry back into
view, View | View |
Unhide will do just
that.
If you have polys
selected and you want
to hide them, View |
View | Hide
Selected will “sub-
Figure 3-28: If I wanted to just get in and work on the shape of this tiger’s
eyelid, it would be easiest to do without the other geometry getting in my tract” what you’ve got
way. selected from your
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Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
view (its hot key is ). (See Figure View | View | Hide Invert will
3-31.) “flip-flop” what you have hidden with what
you have visible.
Figure 3-29
Figure 3-30
Figure 3-31
Note
Hide Invert is a great way to refine what geometry). You can then select the polys
you’ve got hidden and what you’ve got you didn’t want hidden and then hide them
visible. from this set of hidden geometry. When
If you are trying to work closely on your you hit Hide Invert again, those polys will
model’s ear and you accidentally hide too be visible along with the rest of the polys
much of your model, you can use Hide Invert you originally wanted to be working on.
(so you’re looking at your currently hidden
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· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Primitives
prim·i·tive adj. 1. a. Of or pertaining to an represented within that particular viewport.
earliest or original stage or state. b. Arche- Click-dragging in another viewport or two
typal. 2. Math. A form in geometry or will “flesh out” your primitive into a fully
algebra from which another form is derived. three-dimensional object. (Figure 3-32
(The American Heritage Dictionary) shows the Box primitive segmented and
with the Numeric window open as well.)
LightWave’s Modeler gives you quick
access to a slew of simple objects created
from mathematical formulae. Balls, boxes, Hot Key Block
discs, cones, capsules, donuts, even gem- Primitive Segmentation
stones are among these quickly accessible While creating primitives, you can press the
items. Left, Right, Up, and Down Arrow keys to
add or remove additional segments. What
Selecting Create | Primitives | Box
each key does is dependent upon the view-
and click-dragging one viewport will create port the mouse is currently over.
a plane constrained by the two dimensions
Figure 3-32
Note
Most of the other primitive object tools located You can get a tiny taste of what sub-patch
under the Create menu tab are easy to under- modeling is like by pressing or choos-
stand after playing with them a few times. I’m ing Construct | Convert | SubPatch to turn
showing the Box tool because in Chapter 7 any selected four-sided polygons into sub-
when we get into sub-patch modeling, a sim- patches; remember that with nothing
ple box like the one shown in Figure 3-32 will selected, Modeler treats everything in the
become the base from which you will “grow” foreground as being selected.
your detailed sub-patch models.
65

Chapter 3 · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Text
Making text in LightWave is a two-part pro-
cess that isn’t immediately obvious. To save
memory space, LightWave’s Modeler
doesn’t load in all the fonts (typefaces) you
have on your computer. You have to specifi-
cally tell Modeler which fonts you wish to
use.
You add fonts to Modeler’s Font List
through Create | Text | Manage Fonts
(Figure 3-33). Here you can add either your Figure 3-33: Using Create | Text | Manage
Fonts.
operating system’s TrueType fonts or a
PostScript Type-1 font (several of which are
included with LightWave).
Clicking on Add True-Type brings up an
OS-specific font requester. Highlighting a
font and clicking OK returns you to the Edit
Font List window, now with the selected
font appearing in the Font pop-up menu
(Figure 3-34).
Having accepted the changes to the font
list made in Figure 3-34, you can then acti-
vate Create | Text | Text and click in any
viewport, typing the text you want to create Figure 3-34
and pressing to “make”
your text.
Figure 3-35
Note
Because LightWave limits a polygon to having Options. This slightly reduces the number of
a maximum of 1,023 points, you may run into points created as the curve data that TrueType
problems with extremely ornate fonts. (Notice and PostScript fonts are made of are converted
that in Figure 3-35, each letter’s contiguous into polygons.
shape is a single polygon.) You can do this for the entire line of text you
The workaround for this, albeit not a perfect are creating or just certain letters that are
one, is to change Curve Divisions to Coarse heavily ornate.
under Modeler | Options | General
66

· · · · · · · · · · · · · Modeling 1: Foundation Material
Surfacing
Of all the 3D packages I’ve used, Light- can do. It’ll be enough to give you a piton
Wave has the quickest, most powerful, and for the more advanced techniques we go
most intuitive surfacing model. In this sec- into in the next chapter.
tion, we just scratch the surface of what it To assign a surface to a polygon, you
simply select the polys to which you
want the surface applied and choose
the Surface button found at the bot-
tom of the interface. You can choose
from your already created surfaces,
enter a new name, change a
surface’s color, and set other simple
attributes.
Hot Key Block
Figure 3-36: The Change Surface window. Surfacing
brings up the
Change Surface window.
The real power of LightWave’s surfac-
Figure 3-37: Shaded viewports show GL versions of the ing is glimpsed through the Surface
surfaces you’ve applied to each polygon. (You can have Editor, which is identical in Layout and
an unlimited number of surfaces on your objects and in
your scenes.)
Modeler. Each surface is listed under
the object to which it belongs.
Selecting that surface from the list
(such as the surface named Shoe in
Figure 3-38) shades the default sphere
in the Surface Editor window with that
surface. You can explore the LW man-
ual for in-depth descriptions of what
each setting, button, and pop-up menu
does; let’s focus on getting familiar
with the most basic of basics right now.
Figure 3-38: The Surface Editor.
67